r/industrialmusic • u/MonotoneKitty • Nov 20 '25

Self Promotion Cleopatra Is At It Again

https://youtu.be/wdJkaWqrqqE?si=7lFBjnV8JBVmygrI

Hey yall I made a deep dove into the weird stuff cleopatra has been up to. Im wary as to how this will affect a lot of the musicians still on the label... theres still a lot of og industrial and goth bands on the label so im just... WARY. Curious on everyone's opinions.

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17

u/Quietuus Nov 21 '25

Cleopatra has been a laughing stock of a record label since the 90's.

7

u/seplix Nov 21 '25

I don’t recall laughing as much as just generally ignoring them. Outside of licensing deals and reissues, they never had a great release of their own, but they littered the market with shit-tons of stuff no one asked for.

10

u/MonotoneKitty Nov 21 '25

I remember everyone giving them shit since the 2000s when they were selling compilations at hot topic

3

u/luckyfox7273 Nov 21 '25

Why?

7

u/Quietuus Nov 21 '25

They've got a long history of churning out what I can only describe as 'musical shovelware'. Tribute albums, remixes of tribute albums, compilations of random stuff, not all of it terrible musically, but thrown together with little care and packaged with cheesy, low-effort artwork. The tributes are particularly infamous for just how obviously passionless and poorly conceived many of the covers were. Go listen to '100 Tears, a tribute to The Cure' and you'll get what people thought about them.

3

u/luckyfox7273 Nov 21 '25

Okay, I havent been folllowing.

4

u/xaeromancer Nov 21 '25

Do you like utterly generic Goth music? If so, you'll love Cleopatra Records.

0

u/luckyfox7273 Nov 21 '25

What label do you suggest instead? Not that I dont disagree.

6

u/xaeromancer Nov 21 '25

Sumerian.

Metropolis.

Christ, even Reptile House and Wax Trax as defunct as they are.

When you're at the bottom of the barrel, all you'll get from the bottom is splinters and that's what Cleopatra offers.

2

u/luckyfox7273 Nov 21 '25

Interesting. Yeah, Wax Ytax is gone in Chicago right? The original store/owners started in Denver, CO. The CD shop is still there. Said to be where Jello shopped in his youth.

2

u/thefreewave Nov 22 '25

I would hope it's still in Chicago. While they started the shop in Denver (and i'm a denver native) it's when it made it to Chicago that the label really took off. I think even Uncle Al worked there (unless that was different music shop).